How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed home. But again, I think I knew, at the very bottom of my heart, exactly what I was doing when I went to France. (1.1.76)
In a very real way, David is more isolated from himself than from anyone else in the novel. What does it mean to be isolated from oneself? For that matter, what does it mean to be searching for oneself or running from oneself? If you're searching for yourself then who are you in the meantime? If you're running from yourself, then where do you put your feet in the starting blocks? How do you know which way to run?
Quote #5
He looked at me and I saw in his face again something which I have fleetingly seen there during these hours: under his beauty and his bravado, terror, and a terrible desire to please; dreadfully moving, and it made me want, in anguish, to reach out and comfort him. (1.3.123)
How can one tell the difference between someone that is outgoing and sincere and someone with a "terrible desire to please"? How does David tell the difference? What does it mean to see something in someone's face? Doesn't that make it seem as if everything happens in a moment? In reality, it's more likely that he has had a hint of Giovanni's anguish for a long time. Why, then, would he just attribute this to a moment?
Quote #6
And it made them furious that the dead center of their lives was, in this instance, none of their business. It made them feel their poverty again, through the narcotics of chatter, and dreams of conquest, and mutual contempt. (2.1.6)
How can the "dead center" of these men's lives be none of their business? Remember that David here assumes that his relationship with Giovanni constituted the dead center of these men's lives. Is this not just an act of egotism? Is David saying something about the men or about himself?